Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language

Author: Stephen R.Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pub.date: May 30, 2006
Paperback: 368 pages

Hugh Lofting’s storybooks about a British doctor who could speak to animals have been classics almost since they first appeared in 1920. Anderson, a linguistics and cognitive psychology professor at Yale, doesn’t dispute the literary merits of Lofting’s work, but he does want to establish that Doctor Dolittle’s talent is all fiction. Anderson makes a careful argument to defend this conclusion, methodically examining what we actually know about animal communication and simultaneously building up a case for what makes human language unique. He revisits the usual discussions about animals’ abilities, from the intricate "dance" of honeybees to the warning calls of vervet monkeys and the sign language learned by lab chimpanzees. His lengthy chapter on syntax is fairly technical and may be difficult for lay readers to navigate, but Anderson does his best to make this arcane subject intelligible because it forms the crux of his book: he identifies syntax as "the essence of language," the primary barrier that animals can’t surmount. In reviewing previous claims that animals have language, he insists on the distinction between language and communication—sometimes a fine difference that appears to necessitate lengthy, confusing explanations that incorporate physics, biology and language theory. Despite its use of enlightening examples and fascinating details of animal behavior, this book is best suited for students of psychology and linguistics. But anyone interested enough in the subject to work through it will find a skillfully made case that even devoted animal admirers might find hard to dismiss.

"A masterly overview of what is currently known about the communicative abilities of a wide range of creatures. . . . Anderson's synthesis provides illuminating comparisons with the infinitely more sophisticated resources of the human language. . . . An elegant book."—Neil Smith, Nature

"Well-written, well-argued, and provocative. . . . I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone interested in animal communication and the evolution of language."—Marc Bekoff, Quarterly Review of Biology.

Link : Stephen R.Anderson - Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Author: Stephen R. Covey
Publisher: Free Press; 15 Anv edition
Pub.date: November 9, 2004
Paperback: 172 pages

Being effective is learning to do 'that which produces the desired result'. If you want to be extremely successful in business or very happy in life or achieve some large goal, then being effective is consistently doing the things that will bring about the results you are after. Perhaps the best overall prescription for becoming effective is contained within Stephen R. Covey's best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Published by Free Press, this book provides a useful, sequential framework for understanding much about the process of Personal Development. Covey does not claim to have invented the 7 habits, but rather to have discovered them and to have found a simple language for articulating them. In fact, he says that these basic principles of effectiveness may be found in all world religions; and it can be noted that many highly successful people seem to have naturally developed them.

SUMMARY OF THE SEVEN HABITS

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Change starts from within, and highly effective people make the decision to improve their lives through the things that they can influence rather than by simply reacting to external forces.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Develop a principle-centered personal mission statement. Extend the mission statement into long-term goals based on personal principles.

Habit 3: Put First Things First
Spend time doing what fits into your personal mission, observing the proper balance between production and building production capacity. Identify the key roles that you take on in life, and make time for each of them.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Seek agreements and relationships that are mutually beneficial. In cases where a "win/win" deal cannot be achieved, accept the fact that agreeing to make "no deal" may be the best alternative. In developing an organizational culture, be sure to reward win/win behavior among employees and avoid inadvertantly rewarding win/lose behavior.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
First seek to understand the other person, and only then try to be understood. Stephen Covey presents this habit as the most important principle of interpersonal relations. Effective listening is not simply echoing what the other person has said through the lens of one's own experience. Rather, it is putting oneself in the perspective of the other person, listening empathically for both feeling and meaning.

Habit 6: Synergize
Through trustful communication, find ways to leverage individual differences to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Through mutual trust and understanding, one often can solve conflicts and find a better solution than would have been obtained through either person's own solution.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Take time out from production to build production capacity through personal renewal of the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Maintain a balance among these dimensions.

Recommended Reading

Link : Stephen R. Covey - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The Silence of the Lambs

Author: Thomas Harris
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Pub.date: February 15, 1991
Paperback: 244 pages

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, is even better than the successful movie. Like his earlier Red Dragon, the book takes us inside the world of professional criminal investigation. All the elements of a well-executed thriller are working here--driving suspense, compelling characters, inside information, publicity-hungry bureaucrats thwarting the search, and the clock ticking relentlessly down toward the death of another young woman. What enriches this well-told tale is the opportunity to live inside the minds of both the crime fighters and the criminals as each struggles in a prison of pain and seeks, sometimes violently, relief.

A review by Incognito :
This book is one of the most tightly- wound and enthralling reads ever. The charahcters are written to perfection, the plot unwinds to perfection, and the actions of those involved are utterly believable

As we know, SOTL deals with the young FBI trainee Clarice Starling, and her hunt for a serial killer nicknamed Bufallo Bill. She is aided in this daunting task by the incarcerated murderer and genius Dr. Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter. Starling is overseen by Jack Crawford, her tired boss. From the beginning, we see very much that Ctarling is the worst and the best person to engage Lecter, to try to find Bufallo Bill. Lecter is the worst kind of murderer; vicious, yet intelligent. Lecter is very much in control of the situation. He may be locked behnind bars, but he is as dangourus there. Lecter is the kind of villain that we don't often see. He does not need threats, strength or anger to be truly evil. He is a quiet observer, always with the killer behind the mask of intelligence. Starling is immediately vulnerable to Lecter, not fearful, but dominated by Lecters impassive wit and sense of brooding. Starling is lost against Lecter.

Buffalo Bill is also an intrieging villain. Twisted, sadistic, unmoved by his actions and mentally disturbed. He is more than any villain I have encountered, and again, he does into need threats or violence to create his vehemence. His murders are terrible, and his treatment of his victim later in the book show us how insane and evil he is.SOFL is the best kind of thriller. Engaging, believable and leaves you with a longing for more, want for more plot and more detail. Read this book, and you will never look at a Deaths- head Moth teh same way again.

Link : Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs.

Hardcore Gamer Fall 2008

Link : Hardcore Gamer Fall 2008.

A History of the English Language

Author: Richard Hogg & David Denison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition
Pub.date: March 17, 2008
Paperback: 520 pages

The history and development of English, from the earliest known writings to its status today as a dominant world language, is a subject of major importance to linguists and historians. In this book, a team of international experts cover the entire recorded history of the English language, outlining its development over fifteen centuries. With an emphasis on more recent periods, every key stage in the history of the language is covered, with full accounts of standardisation, names, the distribution of English in Britain and North America, and its global spread. New historical surveys of the crucial aspects of the language are presented, and historical changes that have affected English are treated as a continuing process, helping to explain the shape of the language today. This complete and up-to-date history of English will be indispensable to all advanced students, scholars and teachers in this prominent field.

• Gives a complete history of the language, from the earliest writings to today • Covers the most up-to-date research, such as major new surveys of the crucial aspects of the language (sounds, word-structure, grammar and vocabulary) • Focusses on the most important issues rather than attempting to provide a chronological account

Contents

1. Overview David Denison and Richard Hogg

2. Phonology and morphology Roger Lass

3. Syntax Olga Fischer and Wim van der Wurff

4. Vocabulary Dieter Kastovsky

5. Standardization Terttu Nevalainen and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

6. Names Richard Coates

7. English in Britain Richard Hogg

8. English in North America Edward Finegan

9. English worldwide David Crystal.

Link : Richard Hogg & David Denison - A History of the English Language.

The 48 Laws of Power

Author: Robert Greene
Publisher: Penguin
Pub. date: September 5, 2000
Paperback: 452 pages

"Learning the game of power requires a certain way of looking at the world, a shifting of perspective," writes Robert Greene. Mastery of one's emotions and the arts of deception and indirection are, he goes on to assert, essential. The 48 laws outlined in this book "have a simple premise: certain actions always increase one's power ... while others decrease it and even ruin us." The laws cull their principles from many great schemers--and scheming instructors--throughout history, from Sun-Tzu to Talleyrand, from Casanova to con man Yellow Kid Weil. They are straightforward in their amoral simplicity: "Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit," or "Discover each man's thumbscrew." Each chapter provides examples of the consequences of observance or transgression of the law, along with "keys to power," potential "reversals" (where the converse of the law might also be useful), and a single paragraph cleverly laid out to suggest an image (such as the aforementioned thumbscrew); the margins are filled with illustrative quotations. Practitioners of one-upmanship have been given a new, comprehensive training manual, as up-to-date as it is timeless.

Review from Publishers Weekly:
Greene and Elffers have created an heir to Machiavelli's Prince, espousing principles such as, everyone wants more power; emotions, including love, are detrimental; deceit and manipulation are life's paramount tools. Anyone striving for psychological health will be put off at the start, but the authors counter, saying "honesty is indeed a power strategy," and "genuinely innocent people may still be playing for power." Amoral or immoral, this compendium aims to guide those who embrace power as a ruthless game, and will entertain the rest. Elffers's layout (he is identified as the co-conceiver and designer in the press release) is stylish, with short epigrams set in red at the margins. Each law, with such allusive titles as "Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy," "Get Others to Do the Work for You, But Always Take the Credit," "Conceal Your Intentions," is demonstrated in four ways?using it correctly, failing to use it, key aspects of the law and when not to use it. Illustrations are drawn from the courts of modern and ancient Europe, Africa and Asia, and devious strategies culled from well-known personae: Machiavelli, Talleyrand, Bismarck, Catherine the Great, Mao, Kissinger, Haile Selassie, Lola Montes and various con artists of our century. These historical escapades make enjoyable reading, yet by the book's conclusion, some protagonists have appeared too many times and seem drained. Although gentler souls will find this book frightening, those whose moral compass is oriented solely to power will have a perfect vade mecum. BOMC and Money Book Club alternates. Author tour.

The Laws

• Law 1 Never Outshine the Master
• Law 2 Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
• Law 3 Conceal your Intentions
• Law 4 Always Say Less than Necessary
• Law 5 So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life
• Law 6 Court Attention at all Cost
• Law 7 Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
• Law 8 Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary
• Law 9 Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
• Law 10 Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
• Law 11 Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
• Law 12 Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
• Law 13 When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
• Law 14 Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
• Law 15 Crush your Enemy Totally
• Law 16 Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
• Law 17 Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
• Law 18 Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
• Law 19 Know Who You’re Dealing with – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
• Law 20 Do Not Commit to Anyone
• Law 21 Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark
• Law 22 Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
• Law 23 Concentrate Your Forces
• Law 24 Play the Perfect Courtier
• Law 25 Re-Create Yourself
• Law 26 Keep Your Hands Clean
• Law 27 Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
• Law 28 Enter Action with Boldness
• Law 29 Plan All the Way to the End
• Law 30 Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
• Law 31 Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal
• Law 32 Play to People’s Fantasies
• Law 33 Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
• Law 34 Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
• Law 35 Master the Art of Timing
• Law 36 Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
• Law 37 Create Compelling Spectacles
• Law 38 Think as you like but Behave like others
• Law 39 Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
• Law 40 Despise the Free Lunch
• Law 41 Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes
• Law 42 Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter
• Law 43 Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
• Law 44 Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
• Law 45 Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
• Law 46 Never appear too Perfect
• Law 47 Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
• Law 48 Assume Formlessness

Link : Robert Greene - The 48 Laws of Power.

Someone said : "i have never recommend this book to any of my colleagues and friends because of the POWER that I am craving..."

Stephen King - Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales

Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Pub.date:March 19, 2002
Hardcover: 464 pages

Everything's Eventual is a collection of 14 short stories written by Stephen King and published in 2002.

- Autopsy Room Four
- The Man in the Black Suit
- All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
- The Death of Jack Hamilton
- In the Deathroom
- The Little Sisters of Eluria
- Everything's Eventual
- L. T.'s Theory of Pets
- The Road Virus Heads North
- Lunch at the Gotham Cafй
- That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French
- 1408
- Riding the Bullet
- Luckey Quarter

Review from Publishers Weekly:
Eyebrows arched in literary circles when, in 1995, the New Yorker published Stephen King's "The Man in the Black Suit," a scorchingly atmospheric tale of a boy's encounter with the Devil in backwoods Maine. The story went on to win the 1996 O. Henry Award for Best Short Story, confirming what King fans have known for years that the author is not only immensely popular but immensely talented, a modern-day counterpart to Twain, Hawthorne, Dickens. "The Man in the Black Suit" appears in this hefty collection, King's first since Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), along with three other extraordinary New Yorker tales: "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," an intensely moving story of a suicidal traveling salesman who collects graffiti; "The Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French," about a woman caught in a fatal loop of deja vu; and "The Death of Jack Hamilton," a gritty, witty tale of Dillinger's gang on the lam. Together, they make up what King, in one of many author asides, calls his "literary stories," which he contrasts to the "all-out screamers" though most of the stories here seem a mix of the two, with the distinction as real as a line on a map. "Autopsy Room Four," a black-humor horror about a man who wakes up paralyzed in a morgue and about to be autopsied, displays a mastery of craft, and "1408," a haunted hotel-room story that first surfaced on the audio book Blood and Smoke, engenders a sense of profound unease, of dread, as surely as do the elegant work of Blackwood or Machen or, if one prefers, Baudelaire or Sartre. King's talent doesn't always burn at peak, of course, and there are lesser tales here, too, but none that most writers wouldn't be proud to claim, like the slight but affecting "Luckey," about a poor cleaning woman given a "luckey" coin as a tip, or "L.T.'s Theory of Pets," which King cites as his favorite of the collection, but whose shift from humor to horror comes off as arbitrary, at least on the page (the story first appeared in audiobook form).Then there's "Riding the Bullet," the novella that put King on the cover of Time and rattled the publishing community not for its content a suspenseful encounter with the dead but for its mode of delivery, as an e-book, and "The Little Sisters of Eleuria," another resonant entry in King's self-proclaimed "magnus opus" about Roland the Gunslinger (Roland will return, King lets on, in a now-finished 900-page Dark Tower novel, Wolves of the Calla). Fourteen stories, most of them gems, featuring an array of literary approaches, plus an opinionated intro from King about the "(Almost) Lost Art" of the short story: this will be the biggest selling story collection of the year, and why not? No one does it better.

Link : Stephen King - Everything's Eventual : 14 Dark Tales.

Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers

Author: Christopher Grey
Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology Books
Pub. Date: October 2006
Format: Paperback, 152pp

Want to offer your clients more to chose from? Here's how: award winning
photographer, Christopher Grey, has developed techniques to enhance portrait
photography, using the creative applications available in Photoshop. Photoshop
Effects for Portrait Photographers contains detailed explanations of how to
replicate many darkroom techniques with Photoshop (Dodging, Burning, Vignettes,
etc.) as well as camera and earlier technology techniques (Short Focus, High
Speed Film Grain, Hand Coloring, etc.). Grey has also developed almost two dozen
ways to replicate traditional painterly and illustrative techniques such as
Rough Charcoal Sketch, Wet Watercolor, Silkscreen, and Oil Chalk.

Table of Contents

A Short Course on Layer Masks; Traditional Photographic Techniques; Creative
Desaturation and Filtration; Organic Vignettes; Converting Color to Grayscale;
Short Focus; Short Focus (Light); Infrared Black and White; Cross Processing;
High Speed Film Grain; Oil Tints; Hand Colored Black and White Damage Free Dodge
and Burn; Image Enhancements; Surreal Backgrounds; HyperColor; Overexposure
Rescue; Hollywood Eyes; Artistic Effects; Perfect Litho; Linoleum Block;
Scratchboard; Rough Pencil Sketch; Charcoal Sketch;
Photocopy Sketch; Grain Sketch; Watercolor; Wet Watercolor; Silkscreen;
Impressionism; The Classic PinUp; Oil Chalk

Link : Christopher Grey - Photoshop Effects for Portrait Photographers.

Atlantis

Author: Gerhart Hauptmann
Publisher: IndyPublish
Release Date:May 14, 2007
Paperback: 304 pages

1912. Nobel laureate Gerhart Hauptmann's first play, Before Sunrise was produced in 1889 at the German Free Theater, and was acknowledged as the beginning of an important new literary movement for Germany. Some critics regard drama as Hauptmann's least happy choice in the form of literary expression. Many consider him as one of the finest poets of modern times. He has also written many well-known novels of which Atlantis is probably the most famous. Atlantis is a social novel with a supernatural subplot involving after-death experiences and dream visions.

Link : Gerhart Hauptmann - Atlantis.

Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics

Author: Eleanor Herman
Publisher: William Morrow
Pub. Date: April 11, 2006
Hardcover: 336 pages

She was the queen, living in an opulent palace, wearing lavish gowns and dazzling jewels. She was envied, admired, and revered. She was also miserable, having been forced to marry a foreign prince sight unseen, a royal ogre who was sadistic, foaming at the mouth, physically repulsive, mentally incompetent, or sexually impotent—and in some cases all of the above.

How did queens find happiness? In courts bristling with testosterone—swashbuckling generals, polished courtiers, and virile cardinals—many royal women had love affairs.

• Anne Boleyn flirted with courtiers; Catherine Howard slept with one. Henry VIII had both of them beheaded.

• Catherine the Great had her idiot husband murdered, and ruled the Russian empire with a long list of sexy young favorites.

• Marie Antoinette fell in love with the handsome Swedish count Axel Fersen, who tried valiantly to rescue her from the guillotine.

• Empress Alexandra of Russia found emotional solace in the mad monk Rasputin. Her behavior was the spark that set off the firestorm of the Russian revolution.

• Princess Diana gave up her palace bodyguard to enjoy countless love affairs, which tragically led to her early death.

When a queen became sick to death of her husband and took a lover, anything could happen—from disgrace and death to political victory. Some kings imprisoned erring wives for life; other monarchs obligingly named the queen's lover prime minister.

The crucial factor deciding the fate of an unfaithful queen was the love affair's implications in terms of power, money, and factional rivalry. At European courts, it was the politics—not the sex—that caused a royal woman's tragedy—or her ultimate triumph.

Link : Eleanor Herman - Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics.

Light and Lens : Photography in the Digital Age

Author : Robert Hirsch
Publisher : Elsevier Science & Technology Books
Pub. Date : August 2007
Edition Number : 1
Format : Textbook Paperback, 397pp

Light & Lens : Photography in the Digital Age is a groundbreaking introductory
book that clearly and concisely provides the instruction and building blocks
necessary to create thought-provoking digitally based photographs. It is an
adventurous idea book that features numerous classroom-tested assignments and
exercises from leading photographic educators to encourage you to critically
explore and make images from the photographers' eye, an aesthetic point of view.

Table Of Contents

Preface
1. Why We Make Pictures: A Concise History of Visual Ideas
2.Design: Visual Foundations
3.Image Capture: Cameras, Lenses, and Scanners
4.Exposure and Filters
5.Seeing with Light
6.Observation: Eyes Wide Open
7.Time, Space, Imagination and the Camera
8.Digital Studio: Where the Virtual Meets the Material World
9.Presentation and Preservation
10.Seeing with a Camera
11.Solutions: Thinking and Writing About Images
12.Photographer on Assignment

Addendum I: Safety
Addendum II: Careers

Link : Robert Hirsch - Light and Lens : Photography in the Digital Age.

A Dog's Life

Author: Peter Mayle
Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition
Pub. Date: March 14, 1995
Hardcover: 192 pages

Peter Mayle surveys his territory from a new vantage point: the all-fours perspective of his dog Boy – a dog whose personality is made up of equal parts Boswell and Dr Johnson, Mencken and A. A. Milne.

Meet Boy, the dog – keen observer of human behaviour and witty chronicler of the joys and contradictions of modern life.

In 'A Dog's Life', Boy tells us his own story - that of a dog in Provence, who progresses from a puppyhood of abuse and abandonment to the good life with a writer and his wife. Witty and urbane, Boy engages us with his opinions and observations on the foibles and quirks of life with his two-footed companions.

On being forcibly groomed for the first time:

Traumatic is the only word to describe what happened next: drenched with water, smeared with soap, rinsed and soaped and rinsed again, and that was just the overture. There followed an interminable session with a miniature lawn mower, and then an attack by scissors, snipping away at ears, moustache, tail, and other sensitive regions. The final indignity was a dusting with powder that smelled like a mixture of Evening in Paris and weed killer... So that was toilettage, and as far as I'm concerned, it ranks with kennels, obedience classes, rectal thermometers, and supervised celibacy as one of man's great mistakes.

On crime and punishment, for which he later outlines the "seven gestures of appeasement" for offenders:

One lesson I've learned in life is that everything is negotiable. No crime, however foul, is beyond redemption. You can steal the Sunday lunch, shred books, bite off the heads of live chickens, and pretty much despoil to your heart's content as long as your conciliation technique is sound. It's known as plea bargaining, and it has allowed far worse villains than I to walk away unpunished, with scarcely a blot on their escutcheon. If you don't believe me, read the newspapers.

On the apparent cleanliness of cats:

There's a popular misconception - shamelessly encouraged, of course, by ostentatious displays of washing and licking and paws behind the ears - that the cat is one of nature's cleaner creations, odour-free and community-minded when it comes to waste disposal. This is bunk. Put a ripe old tomcat in an enclosed space, such as the garage, and you'll need to hold your breath. It's that bad.

On the aerobic benefit of playing with tennis balls:

I mentioned stairs earlier. These have the double attraction of noise and healthy physical exertion, in contrast to the visitors' usual program of elbow bending and free-weight training with knife and fork. The falling ball provides multiple bouncing sounds, and the retriever has to climb up the stairs to give it back to me. As any doctor will tell you, this is very beneficial for the legs and lungs.

In a house where dinner parties are frequent, guests include non-practicing painters and salesmen of wine, antique dealers and touring Americans, Boy tartly assesses them all. Mayle has uncovered here a lovable, unforgettable character in a wickedly funny book.

Edward Koren doubles the fun with 59 whimsical drawings.

You don't have to be a dog lover or Francophile to enjoy 'A Dog's Life', but it might help to be at least one of the two.

Read and enjoy!

Link : Peter Mayle - A Dog's Life.

The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book: Harnessing Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool

Author : Richard Lynch
Publisher : Focal Press
Pub. Date : July 30, 2007
Paperback: 288 pages

Imagine yourself in total control of every adjustment to your photos. You've seen the illustrations in glossy magazines, the fine art reproductions in museum catalogs, the award-winning pictures of professional photographers. To produce this kind of magic, understanding how to use layers for your entire breadth of image correction is key.

Discover the best ways to showcase your talent with the full power of layers from best-selling author/digital image specialist Richard Lynch. Learn what layers can do for you as an integral part of organizing image development, creating and storing image versions with nondestructive editing, and promoting a positive workflow.

Timeless, not version specific, this book will help you take layers to a new level to increase your efficiency and produce better end results, whatever release of the software you use. Step-by-step instructions and practical examples illustrate how to:
* Leverage layer power to correct and enhance color, fix problems in composition, repair damage or flaws, and isolate image areas for changes, adjustments and experimental concepts
* Incorporate layers in a workflow that extracts the maximum from your camera, exploits the potential in every image and helps you organize your perceptions and ideas according to your unique vision
* Recombine layers to form new images in a nondestructive process that preserves both the original image and intermediate layers for further editing - or tomorrow's inspirations
* Dip into the accompanying CD with a robust library and presets of practice images. Create your own set of favorite composition techniques

Dont make your work harder than it needs to be when you can use layers to control any adjustment using multiple forms of blending concurrently transparency, clipping, opacity/fill, masking, modes, channel targeting, Blend If, and styles.

Link : The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book: Harnessing Photoshop's Most Powerful Tool.

Adobe Photoshop - Every Tool Explained

AdobePhotoshop - Every tool explained: Unleash the full power behind every icon in the Photoshop toolbar.

Chapter 1 SELECTION TOOLS IN PHOTOSHOP
Making selections is the core of Photoshop’s way of working.There are a variety of tools you can use for the purpose, so here’s how to get the most out of them.

Chapter 2 NAVIGATING AND EDITING YOUR IMAGES
Getting around inside an image is important if you are to work quickly and efficiently. This chapter covers the view navigation tools and shortcuts for managing your workspace.

Chapter 3 USING THE BRUSHES AND PENCIL TOOLS
This chapter introduces you to Photoshop’s more arty tools, the Brushes. But as you’ll discover, you can use these versatile tools for far more than just painting.

Chapter 4 USING THE CLONING AND HEALING TOOLS
The Cloning and Healing tools in Photoshop offer an elegant way to fix damaged photos, correct bad scans and generally clean up your images.And they’re great fun to use.

Chapter 5 THE GRADIENT,FILL AND ERASER TOOLS
Once you get more competent with Photoshop you’ll appreciate the importance of these utility tools.The Gradient tool in particular is essential for all manner of tricks and effects.

Chapter 6 GETTING TO KNOWTHE EFFECTS TOOLS
Photoshop’s effects tools include Blur, Sharpen,Smudge,Dodge and Burn.Discover how best to use them to spice up your artwork, composites and photographic images.

Chapter 7 WORKING WITH THE TYPE TOOL
Creating text in Photoshop is quite easy to do, whether it’s for artistic effect or simply to add essential information.This chapter looks at the various options available with the Type tool.

Chapter 8 WORKING WITH PATHS,VECTORS AND MASKS
Photoshop has always used vector-based ‘paths’ to draw smooth shapes and outlines. Learn how the latest version has the ability to create shapes and masks with vectors too.

Chapter 9 ANNOTATIONS,NOTES AND THE MEASURE TOOL
Along with the creative tools,Photoshop provides several tools to add accuracy,sound and vision to your work.These fall into two tool groups – Notation and Measurement tools.

Chapter 10 CREATING TOP QUALITY ARTWORK
In this final chapter we’ll put together a piece of artwork using all the tools and options that we’ve looked at over the course of this Photoshop Focus Guide.

Link : Adobe Photoshop - Every Tool Explained.

PC World November 2008

• 100 Incredibly Web Sites.
• 50 Tune-up Tools to make your PC run faster.
• 10 easy way to avoid Security Nightmates.
• 12 Vista Features you don't need - and how to turn them off.
• 10 Products that don't live up to their hype.

Link : PC World November 2008.

IEEE Robotics And Automation Magazine Vol.15 No.3 Sep 2008

Link : IEEE Robotics And Automation Magazine Vol.15 No.3 Sep 2008.

The Possibility of Knowledge

Author: Quassim Cassam
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pub. Date: 8 Mar 2007

How is knowledge of the external world possible? How is knowledge of other minds possible? How is a priori knowledge possible? These are all examples of how-possible questions in epistemology. Quassim Cassam explains how such questions arise and how they should be answered.
In general, we ask how knowledge, or knowledge of some specific kind, is possible when we encounter obstacles to its existence or acquisition. So the question is: how is knowledge possible given the various factors that make it look impossible? A satisfactory answer to such a question will therefore need to do several different things. In essence, explaining how a particular kind of knowledge is possible is a matter of identifying ways of acquiring it, overcoming or dissipating obstacles to its acquisition, and figuring out what makes it possible to acquire it.
To respond to a how-possible question in this way is to go in for what might be called a "multi-levels" approach. The aim of this book is to develop and defend this approach. The first two chapters bring out its advantages and explain why it works better than more familiar "transcendental" approaches to explaining how knowledge is possible. The remaining chapters use the multi-levels framework to explain how perceptual knowledge is possible, how it is possible to know of the existence of minds other than one's own and how a priori knowledge is possible.

Link : Quassim Cassam - The Possibility of Knowledge.

Electronic Gaming Monthly November 2008

Link : Electronic Gaming Monthly November 2008.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Author:Lewis Carroll
Publisher: Adamant Media Corporation
Release Date:March 1, 2001
Paperback: 241 pages

A chance encounter with a tardy rabbit sends young Alice into a dream-world of lunatic proportions in Alice in Wonderland, a witty and frequently bizarre satire of English social life. Equally entertaining for children and thought-provoking for adults, Alice was an immediate success upon its publication in 1865. Keep an eye out for Carroll's superb nursery-rhyme parodies, not to mention the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts.
Whereas much of the first Alice novel centered around a card game, Through the Looking-Glass focuses on a chess game of mammoth proportions. A social satire much like its predecessor, Looking-Glass contains some of Carroll's most memorable characters and best nonsense-verse ("Jabberwocky").

Link : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

AutoCAD2008 3D Modeling Workbook For Dummies

Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
Pub. Date: August 2007
Format: Paperback, 384 pages

AutoCAD 2007 features a new 3D rendering engine that greatly enhances the
program's 3D functionality-and makes this industry-standard drafting program
even more difficult to master, even for veteran users. This focused For Dummies
workbook gives people the practice they need to get up to speed on the new 3D
features, with dozens of problems and step-by-step solutions for modeling,
shadowing, and lighting. Topics covered by the problems include 2D geometric
construction, 3D solid modeling, 3D surface modeling, rendering and imaging,
dimensioning and drafting, and model interchange. Used by architects, engineers,
and draftspeople, AutoCAD is the #1 computer-aided design (CAD) software in the
world, with an installed base of 6.7 million users. The accompanying DVD
provides videos that illustrate select problems and solutions presented in the
workbook.

Table of Contents

Introduction.
Part I: Introducing AutoCAD.
Chapter 1: AutoCAD and the User Interface.
Chapter 2: Working with Drawing Files.
Chapter 3: Customizing Your Work Environment.
Part II: Going from 2D to 3D.
Chapter 4: Transitioning from 2D to 3D.
Chapter 5: Viewing a 3D Model.
Chapter 6: Taking the Plunge into 3D.
Chapter 7: Additional Exercises: Making the Transition.
Part III: 3D Modeling — Solid Modeling.
Chapter 8: Modeling with Solid.
Chapter 9: Modifying and Analyzing Solids.
Chapter 10: Creating Section and Auxiliary Views from Models.
Chapter 11: Additional Exercises: Modeling with Solids.
Part IV: 3D Modeling — Surfaces.
Chapter 12: Modeling with Surfaces.
Chapter 13: Complex Surface Modeling.
Chapter 14: Modifying Surfaces.
Chapter 15: Additional Exercises: Modeling with Surfaces.
Part V: Visualizing the Design.
Chapter 16: Lighting.
Chapter 17: Materials.
Chapter 18: Rendering and Animating.
Chapter 19: Additional Exercises: Visualizing the Design.
Part VI: Model Interchange.
Chapter 20: Plotting to a Hardcopy or an Electronic File.
Chapter 21: Importing and Exporting 3D Models.
Part VII: The Part of Tens.
Chapter 22: More than Ten New Features in AutoCAD 2008.
Chapter 23: More than Ten Software and Professional Design Resources.
Appendix A: Glossary.
Appendix B: About the DVD.
Index.

Link : AutoCAD2008 3D Modeling Workbook For Dummies.

Photoshop CS All-in-One Desk Reference

By : Barbara Obermeier
Number of Pages: 843

Brace yourself—this For Dummies guide is in full, dazzling color! That way you can see how you can lighten, brighten, blur, sharpen, or even age your digital images with Photoshop CS2. Chances are you have Photoshop CS2 and have explored it enough to know that you need a good guide to make the most of all its capabilities and get up to speed fast. Odds are you’ve experimented with some photos and spent hours tweaking them. Maybe you’re a veteran and used Photoshop CS2 to turn the gray sky to blue in a resort photo or to brighten the CEO’s smile. Maybe you’re a novice and gleefully extracted your ex from old photos and gave yourself a flattering mini-makeover at the same time. Maybe you used it to remove a scratch from a treasured family photo.

Regardless, you probably haven’t scratched the surface. Photoshop CS2 gives you so many options and tools for digital image creation, correction, and enhancement that even experienced pros can discover new techniques and shortcuts. With explanations for working on a PC or a Mac, Photoshop CS2 All-In-One desk Reference For Dummies is your complete resource that:

Combines nine minibooks:

1. Photoshop Fundamentals
2. Image Essentials
3. Selections
4. Painting, Drawing, and Typing
5. Working with Layers
6. Channels and Masks
7. Filters and Distortions
8. Retouching and Restoration
9. Photoshop and Print

Has more than 650 pages of tips, techniques, and plain-English explanations

Is in glorious, full color, with all kinds of photographs and examples

Has tons of screen shots so you’ll know exactly what to look for on your screen

Provides a tear out Cheat Sheet that’s your instant reference for finding your way around Photoshop CS2, accessing the tools palette through shortcuts, and making selections
Gets you up to speed on the new Adobe Bridge that lets you view, search, and organize your files, edit Camera Raw files, search for and purchase royalty-free stock photography, synchronize color settings, and more

Introduces you to the 58 tools in the Tools palette, from the Pen to the Eraser… the Spot Healing Brush to the Burn…the Clone Stamp to the Red Eye

Explains how to work with Vanishing Point—the new feature that lets you edit three dimensionally on a two-dimension image

Features special Putting-It-Together exercises that walk you through numbered steps to show you how to do various tasks such as getting the red out of eyes, making and fine-tuning a collage, and more...

Link : Photoshop CS All-in-One Desk Reference.

Infected

Author: Scott Sigler
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: April 1, 2008
Number of Pages: 320

Across America, a mysterious disease is turning ordinary people into raving, paranoid murderers who inflict brutal horrors on strangers, themselves, and even their own families.

Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC Epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common — they've been contaminated by a bio-engineered parasite, shaped with a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.

Meanwhile Perry Dawsey — a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey — awakes one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices—he is infected.

The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must now wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

Infected is the first major print release from internet phenom Scott Sigler, whose podcast-only audiobooks have drawn an immense cult following. Now Sigler storms the bookstore shelves with a cinematic, relentlessly paced novel that mixes and matches genres, combining horror, technothriller, and suspense.

Link : Scott Sigler - Infected.

Popular Photography October 2008

Link : Popular Photography October 2008.

The Secret

Author : Rhonda Byrne
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release Date: November 28, 2006
Language: English

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life -- money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.

The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

In this self-help guide, Rhonda Byrne reveals how the wisdom of the ages can help us tap into the powers within ourselves as she shares contemporary stories from those who have used positive thinking to attain happiness, wealth, and success.

Link : Rhonda Byrne - The Secret.

The Undercover Economist

By: Tim Harford
Publisher: Random House Inc
Release Date: January 9, 2007

Like a good teacher, journalist Tim Hartford make sense of economics by showing how it works in the real world--and making it all interesting. Through case studies of recognizable companies such as Starbucks, the grocery chain Whole Foods, and various healthcare providers, airlines, banks, and other entities and corporations, Hartford brings to life a mysterious--perhaps manipulative?--world. Some of economics is psychology; a lot of it is "forces." And much of it affects us every day, whether or not we know what terms like "game theory" really mean. Moving from the micro- to the macro-level, he explains both the placement of goods on the store shelf and China's rise to prominence. Without any axe to grind, Hartford uses inventive examples to clue the reader in to how the so-called "invisible hand" reaches into our pockets, and how we can become more informed consumers. After reading THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST, readers may not open up their monthly credit card bill or load their shopping cart with the same innocence they had before.

Link : Tim Harford - The Undercover Economist.

PC Magazine - November 2008

1. Devour our PC Blockbuster.
2. Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites.
3. Want to be a smarter PC user?
4. Shiny Gadgets!
5. Save money on your tech purchases.

......
Link : PC Magazine November 2008.

Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't

By Jim Collins

Publication Date: 10/16/2001

The Challenge

Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Link : Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't.

Eye Movements : A Window on Mind and Brain

Publisher: Elsevier Science
Number Of Pages: 600
Publication Date: 2007-05-03
Binding: Hardcover
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
Studio: Elsevier Science

Eye-movement recording has become the method of choice in a wide variety of disciplines investigating how the mind and brain work. This volume brings together recent, high-quality eye-movement research from many different disciplines and, in doing so, presents a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in eye-movement research.

Sections include the history of eye-movement research, physiological and clinical studies of eye movements, transsaccadic integration, computational modelling of eye movements, reading, spoken language processing, attention and scene perception, and eye-movements in natural environments.

* Includes recent research from a variety of disciplines
* Divided into sections based on topic areas, with an overview chapter beginning each section
* Through the study of eye movements we can learn about the human mind, and eye movement recording has become the method of choice in many disciplines

Link : Eye Movements : A Window on Mind and Brain.

Computer Shopper Magazine - November 2008

Link : Computer Shopper Magazine - November 2008

Becoming an Extraordinary Manager: The 5 Essentials for Succes

By: Len Sandler
Publisher: AMACOM
Pages: 256
Publication Date: October 31, 2007

Extraordinary managers are galvanizing forces. They make the whole of their organizations greater than the sum of its disparate parts. They motivate, praise, and exact extraordinary results from ordinary workers. But managers of this caliber are rare and usually made, not born.

In Becoming an Extraordinary Manager, Sandler identifies the major reasons organizations have historically created and sustained poor managers. He offers those already leading, and those rising through the ranks, a development plan based on five major pillars of great management:

1. Motivating others.
2. Attracting and retaining top talent.
3. Planning and organizing group performance.
4. Driving results throughout an organization.
5. Lifelong development.

Link: Becoming an Extraordinary Manager: The 5 Essentials for Succes

Brisingr

Author: Christopher Paolini
Publisher: Random House

Brisingr is the third book of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, following the hugely successful books Eragon and Eldest. It was released on September 20, 2008. The title means "fire" in the fictional Language of Alagaesia. The book sold 550,000 copies on its first day of sale, the most ever for a Random House Children's Book. Though this can be classified as Young Adult Literature, it appeals to the literary tastes of the young and old alike.

To most young adults, Paolinis books are as interesting as the Harry Potter series.

Link: Christopher Paolini - Brisingr.

The Advanced Digital Photographer's Workbook

THE ADVANCED DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHER'S WORKBOOK is packed full
of real-world yet incredibly practical and effective solutions to move digital photographers
to a new level of performance. Contributors include twelve world-class professional
digital photographers who share their tips and tricks. The authors provide
details to move you beyond the basics of capture, processing and output to more
sophisticated workflow functions and techniques that will help you create world
-class images. They cover rigorous yet easy-to-understand approaches to: capture
a great image in black-and-white and color, correct color, calibrate and set up
systems properly, creatively manipulate and enhance the image, and produce an
excellent print or output of the image.

Link: The Advanced Digital Photographer's Workbook

Twilight Saga

Author: Stephenie Meyer

As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.

Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.

Edward’s soft voice came from behind me.

I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine–like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob–knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?

Link:

1. Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse.
   
2. Stephenie Meyer - New moon.
   
3. Stephenie Meyer - Twilight.
   
4. Stephenie Meyer - Breaking dawn.
   

PC Magazine October 2008

1. Learn how to do darn near everything with PCMag.com's Solutions.
2. What are the best colleges for geeks?
3. Want more Dovorak?
4. Stay safe with our Security Watch blog.
5. Use PCMag.com's Product Finder.

.....
Link : PC Magazine October 2008